Grouting Tips – How To Give Your Tiling a Professional Look

If you choose to do your tiling yourself rather than call in a professional, you may wonder how you can get a professional look. If you want your tiles to look as though they were installed by a professional, there are a few hints and tips that you should follow.

Start with Clean Joints

Better Bathroom Tile solutions are a basic necessity if you want a certain look for your bathroom. You will need to start from scratch, which means having completely clean joints. Your grouting isn’t going to look much good if you start out with some of the old grout or any other dust and debris remaining. Make sure that you vacuum out the space between the tiles, then scrape the space and vacuum again. This should get rid of anything that might be lurking and give you a good base from which to start.

Use Tape

Use masking tape to cover any painted walls that run adjacent to the tiles. This will minimize the chance of getting any grout on the walls, which can be hard to remove and looks less than professional. If your tiles have any grooved or engraved patterns, you should tape over these too, as if you get grout into the patterns it will be difficult to remove it.

Buy the Right Tools

If you don’t have all the right equipment, it is going to be impossible to get a good finish on your grouting job. At the very least, you will need a grout float for applying the grout and a margin trowel for scraping out the joints and mixing your grout.

Mix the Grout Correctly

You are never going to grout your tiles well if you don’t mix your grout correctly. You should consult the packaging for the ratios of powdered grout to water that you will need, but you shouldn’t blindly trust these ratios as various factors can affect how your grout turns out. Even something as simple as the weather or the humidity can make a difference. When mixing your grout, make sure you do so until there is absolutely no powder left in the bucket or other container in which you are doing the mixing. When it is properly mixed, it should be the consistency of smooth peanut butter. As soon as it gets to this consistency, stop mixing and let it sit for 10 minutes. This is known as slaking and if you don’t do this, it will make the joints weaker and more likely to crack.

Are you afraid that you won’t be able to do a good job of grouting your tiles? Well, worry no longer. Grouting doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Follow the advice above and you will have a professional-looking grouting job done in no time.

Laurie Had well is an experienced homes and interiors writer. He writes articles on home design for various blogs, websites and print publications. He thinks that Better Bathroom Tile solutions are useful for achieving excellent results.